This Harry Potter story was written for fun. All rights belong to the wonderful lady (JK Rowling) who gave the world Harry Potter to read and enjoy.
This chapter has been reloaded with the correct ending. Apologies to readers.
The professors observe the students beginning to work without regard to their 'house' affiliation. Harry and his friends begin Herbology and Potions with surprizing results. The problems with doxies and pixies infesting greenhouses are brought up and Neville explains the many uses for aconite in their first potions class.
Chapter 17 Second DayThe 'puffs arrived as a group in the Great Hall that second morning but with a murder of Ravenclaws and a pride of Lions mixed in their numbers. There were even a few Snakes in the crowd and in their intensity of conversations about yesterday's classes, a few students ended up sitting at a different table for breakfast.
At the staff table, Minerva McGonagall held her breath as Severus Snape entered and without comment, bypassed the two 'claws, Granger and Patil, sitting with his Slytherins, Greengrass and Davis, at the end of the Slytherin table and arguing about transfiguration. The Nott and Corner boys were similarly engaged at the Ravenclaw table.
Professor Flitwick remained at the opposite end of the tables on guard for any disturbances as the older Slytherin students entered. Glancing first at the watchful face of Professor Flitwick and then at the calm visage of their head of house at the staff table, talking to Healer Troutman, the older students shrugged that the muggleborn and Indian witches were sitting at their table.
The flurry of wings filled the air as the post owls arrived with letters from home and copies of the Daily Prophet for subscribers. Someone had sent home a memory of the sorting and there were photos captured from the memory from two nights before with the False Chapeau flying through the air between Hedwig and Fawkes, of Professor McGonagall holding up the Sorting Hat for all to see, and of the bouncing heads of students moving back and forth between the two hats.
"It was someone at the Gryffindor table," Justin told the boys gathered at the end of the 'puff's table. "You see Diggory and Tonks in the photo with their backs turned to the person watching."
"Say guys, Neville and I decided last night we'd become friends enough to use first names. Can we all give that a try?" asked Harry.
"I agree," said Ernie and he was echoed by Joseph. Zach hesitated a moment. But Susan and Hannah, leading the girls in 'puff jumped into the conversation.
"We agree so long as everyone behaves," Hannah announced.
Zach had little choice but to agree. He'd have to work hard to climb to the top of the Hufflepuff social network after his little defeat at Potter's hands.
"Good," Harry replied. "We'll check with the 'claws, Lions and Snakes later."
"Harry," asked Zach. "Do you think the Slytherins will be friends with... with you?"
The boy-who-lived almost shrugged but then remembered the Etiquette book rule that 'Wizards and witches do not shrug like muggles!'.
"Zacharias, I want to be friends with people in every house. I guess that some people won't be friends, but that's their choice." Harry paused and smiled, "If everyone gets along, the professors'll worry we're up to no good."
*(+++++)*
Hedwig chose that moment to land on the table, chortling at Harry in greeting and holding out her leg for him to detach three letters. The owl and young wizard began an animated conversation that captured the attention of students at the tables on either side of them and eventually the staff table.
"And you had a good flight down to London? How were Felicity and Ironstream?" Harry asked before the owl began a long reply to which the boy paid close attention.
"Good. And how were the babies and Hagrid?" he asked. Hedwig had a long answer again that had Harry laughing at one point.
"Harry, I understand that Hedwig is your familiar and she can understand you," Justin said. "But I don't quite understand how you can understand her."
Harry looked at Hedwig and the owl chortled a long answer that the young wizard translated, "According to Hedwig, there's a magical link between us that is unusual. Neville and his toad familiar are linked together but don't understand each other like Hedwig and me."
"Okay, but how?"
Harry shook his head and said, "She says I have to read a bunch of books before I can explain it to anyone."
Hermione paid attention to the conversation and asked, "May I read the books that Miss Hedwig tells you to read, Harry?"
"Of course," Harry replied. "I need you to read them so we can talk about what they mean."
"When can we get these books?" asked Hermione with Padma, Michael Corner, and Justin paying close attention.
The owl hooted her laughter and chortled an answer that made Harry frown before he translated, "She said 'next year'. We have to build a solid foundation in charms, transfiguration and shields before she'll tell us what books to read.
Neville listened but didn't contribute to the conversation. He did catch Hedwig's eye and she winked at him, leaving him grinning at the owl's plan to make them all work harder.
*(+++++)*
Scene: Hedwig and TrevorThe Herbology class for the first year Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff students included learning their way around Greenhouse Two with the large number of herbs and potion ingredient plants growing under artificial light and perfect humidity. This was their first class after breakfast and with the practical portion, would last almost three hours.
First, Professor Sprout introduced the students to essential definitions for the herbology class and the objectives for the shortened fall term. Then she led them outside to the three greenhouses where she and the students grew both magical and muggle plants for use in the potions' laboratory and the kitchens at Hogwarts.
"While Scotland provides plenty of moisture year-round, we have to use heating charms ten months out of the year in Greenhouse One and Two. We allow Greenhouse Three to cool off in January to provide the native plants from Britain to 'rest' for a two-month winter before we begin bringing them back to life with warmth in March."
Neville raised his hand and asked, "How much light do you give the plants in the other greenhouses, professor?"
'Huh?' thought Harry, Justin, Hermione and Padma who were standing with Neville.
"Excellent question, Mr. Longbottom," replied Professor Sprout. "Greenhouses One and Two are kept on the length of day cycle of spring to fall without fail. The plants there continually cycle from the first day of spring to the first day of autumn."
"Five points to Hufflepuff," Sprout said proudly and Neville sat back surprized. Harry grinned at his friend and even Hermione nodded in approval.
On Harry's shoulder, Hedwig hooted quietly at the end of the class and Harry translated, "Neville, Hedwig asks if we could look for Trevor. She wants to check on him here in the greenhouse."
Checking the amount of light in the room, Neville said, "He'll be underneath a table or some large plant staying out of the light."
"We'll see you in Potions class after lunch," Hermione said as she and the other Ravenclaws fled the greenhouse.
"I guess she doesn't want to search for the toad," Justin said wiggling his eyebrows as the boys remembered her lifting her feet from the floor of the train compartment on the trip to Hogwarts when Trevor freed himself.
"How do we find him?" asked Harry.
"Find who?" asked Mr. Lupin, the man introduced as Professor Sprout's assistant in the greenhouses.
"Morning, Professor Lupin," Harry said. "We're looking for Neville's large toad. My owl wanted to check on him."
"Your owl?" asked the tall man.
Hedwig hooted a bit and Harry grinned. "Hedwig says that you are an excellent hunter and should be able to smell the toad even with the plants and children running about."
Remus looked at the owl with interest and she returned the examination with both large eyes, scanning up and down his form.
"Mr. Remus Lupin, this is Mr. Potter's familiar, Miss Hedwig Snowy Owl," Professor Sprout made the introduction as she interrupted the conversation. "Don't refer to her as anything other than 'Miss Hedwig' or you'll be called the 'man' or worse in her conversations for several days."
"Really?"
"Yeah, Miss Granger is still called 'girl'," explained Harry. "Hedwig gets her point across."
Remus bowed his head to the owl and with a grin on his face said, "Then, let's find Miss Hedwig's friend Trevor."
He led the boys back and forth twice along the length of the greenhouse before stopping in the centre, pulling out his wand and casting, "Point me Trevor the toad."
The wand spun around a bit and pointed toward Greenhouse One. "Now, how would he get from Greenhouse Two to the other greenhouse without… Did someone move him?"
"I haven't moved him, professor," Neville quickly explained. "But he did always seem to move around my greenhouses at home pretty easily."
The group quickly moved to Greenhouse One where large plants provided deep shade under the artificial but hot, midday sun. Immediately, Remus was able to smell the toad sleeping underneath a large Prickly Pear Tree, a plant that provided stickers with potent sap used in many potions to make glues and potions to reconnect tissues torn by accidents, falls, or sharp objects.
Hedwig glided from Harry's shoulder to the ground and hooted into the shadows a bit before the toad hopped out and appeared to talk with the owl. Finally, she hooted at her wizard who drew a dead mouse from a pocket in his back pack and handed it to Neville.
"Trevor wants a mouse for lunch, and Hedwig wanted you to feed him," Harry explained. Without hesitation, Neville took the mouse by the tail and knelt beside Trevor, dangling it before the toad's mouth. In an instant, the toad's long, bright red tongue shot out to grab the rodent and pull the 'lunch' into his mouth.
"That's so cool," Neville said. "Trevor, you're great!"
Hedwig began hooting again and Harry translated, "Professor Lupin, Hedwig wanted me to ask you to tell Professor Sprout that the doxies in Greenhouse One have dug a lot of tunnels underneath the ground and that's how Trevor moved from Greenhouse Two to Greenhouse One. And he says the doxies don't taste good but they do fight and leave the rats lying about for the old owls to pick up at night."
"Rats? Here in Hogwarts?" asked Remus. "I… there's are wards against rats here in the castle."
"Trevor says there is a large colony of rats in the dungeons below the Slytherin dorms and the potions lab. They come out at night and house elves keep closing up all the holes they dig."
"Rats in the potions lab?" asked Remus with growing concern.
Harry looked at Hedwig who chortled again for Harry to translate as, "Yes and a few come to the greenhouses but the owls catch them in the open at night."
Now Harry turned to Neville and asked, "Hedwig also wants to know if you have doxies in your greenhouses at home?"
Neville shook his head and said, "I have a large colony of pixies in my greenhouses. I let more of my greenhouse 'rest' in the winter and that favours the pixies over doxies."
He looked around and pointed out the small nibbles on many of the leaves of the largest plants, "Doxies chew up plants, draperies and clothes by their nature. Pixies can't stand doxies and drive them away from the plants in my greenhouses."
Remus said, "Five points to Hufflepuff, Mr Longbottom. We'll have to talk with Professor Sprout about this."
"I'm sure she knows, professor. When your greenhouse operates year-round, you always have more doxies. That's why she has so many Pixie-dust vine planted everywhere. It helps counteract the doxies."
*(+++++)*
At lunch, there was a lot of noise at the Gryffindor and Slytherin tables – for once Hufflepuff was already ahead in the house points race with Ravenclaw as a close second. The professors at the staff table discussed the display during their meal but agreed to allow the natural progression of points; even Severus was willing to play fair here at the beginning of the year.
*(+++++)*
Scene: Professor Snape's ClassAfter lunch, the happy group of children from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw made their way into the dungeons of Hogwarts, looking for the classroom for potions. As they descended stairs from the level with the Great Hall and the entrance to Hufflepuff, the hallways grew cold and empty.
"Diggory said the Slytherin dormitory is down here and the potions classroom is just up the hallway from the hidden entrance…" Justin was saying.
Harry snickered, "If the entrance to Slytherin is hidden, how can we use it to find the potions classroom?"
Justin turned pale and Neville actually said, "I think Diggory was trying to prank us."
"No, the potions classroom is really down here," Padma from Ravenclaw said. "My sister told me at lunch that her class was here this morning and Professor Snape was very strict."
Hermione nodded, "We'll be fine. 'claws and 'puffs work together and follow the rules."
"Most of the time," Zach added.
Without too much trouble, the firsties finally found the doorway marked as the Potions Classroom. Harry turned the door knob and found it locked. Susan Bones kept her wand lit with a luminous charm to brighten the hallway.
"Why do you suppose it's locked?" asked Hannah as the students made themselves as comfortable as possible.
Hermione and Padma whispered together for a moment and then said, "Professor Snape must keep the door locked between classes to protect the potions ingredients and to protect students."
"Some things used in potions are very expensive and other ingredients are explosive," Padma explained.
Neville seemed to be thinking very quickly and nodded, "I can think of six plants we saw in the greenhouse this morning that would be explosive if mixed together with some heat. If the greenhouses ever caught fire, they'd blow up the entire backside of Hogwarts."
"I was just remembering what Professor Moody said about paying attention to the situation around you," said Michael Corner. "This hallway would be a terrible place to get trapped."
"He's right," agreed Justin.
"What do we do?" asked Padma.
"We take precautions… that's what my aunt always tells me to do," said Susan Bones and she quickly ordered the students at the back of the group to turn around and draw their wands. She moved to join them and told Harry to knock on the door.
*(+++++)*
Severus Snape heard the knock on the classroom door as he prepared the classroom for his next class with firsties; his patience was worn thin after the dunderheads from Gryffindor and Slytherin blew up three cauldrons in the morning class, and between classes, the Weasley twins tried to get into the potion stores. Those irritating third years had already earned another week's detention with the squib who cleaned the floors around Hogwarts. He strode to the door and flung it open to find the eyes of Lily Evans staring back at him.
*(+++++)*
Come in, come in," Snape instructed the students. "Don't dawdle in the hallway…"
He paused in his usual tirade when he noticed the configuration of the children with the Bones heiress among the 'defenders' at the back of the pack.
'Apparently Moody has already made an impression,' he decided. Once the students were seated, he closed the classroom door more gently than he'd opened it and walked to the front of the room.
He glanced at the faces of the 'claws and 'puffs; these children wanted to be here… wanted to learn.
Severus threw out his standard speech that usually drove at least one firstie to tears and began anew.
"The brewing of a potion is more than mixing together ingredients to create an elixir that restores a lost limb or cures a disease. Potions are a science that is available to any wizard or witch with even a modicum of magic. It can save lives or destroy nations."
He stared at the children who paid close attention to his statements. "We do not use wands to create potions so put them away."
There followed a moment of noise as students moved wands to pockets or bags. Snape noticed the Potter boy push his wand back into wrist holder.
"This term, we will begin by brewing simple potions that your familiars could brew if they had opposable thumbs. Even a monkey in the zoo could brew these potions," the potions professor said and noted that most of the students smiled at the subtle reference to chimps.
"Without shouting out any answers, but by raising your hands, who knows what I am brewing if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"
'What… infusion… what?' wondered most of the children including Potter.
Only three of the Ravenclaws raised their hands; Hermione, Padma, and Michael. The Hufflepuffs looked concerned that this was not information covered in the first chapter of their text book they'd read last night.
"Again, with a show of hands, who can tell me where I would find a bezoar?"
This time, there were half a dozen hands in the air, four from Ravenclaw and two from Hufflepuff.
"And who knows why a potion master or healer would have such an item handy?"
The same six hands were raised into the air.
"Now, again with a show of hands, what is the difference between wolfsbane and monkshood?"
Neville Longbottom quickly raised his hand to answer the last question though his hand was the only one up this time.
Snape looked surprised to see a firstie attempt to answer that fifth-year question.
"What's your name?" he asked the boy.
"Neville Longbottom, sir."
"Alright Neville, for five points, what is the difference between wolfsbane and monkshood?"
"They are the same plant, sir," Neville replied. "The proper name is Aconitum but it has many common names including aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, mousebane, and queen of poisons. It was used in ancient times as a poison on the tips of arrows in battles but not when hunting. The different parts of the plant are used for different poisons and in some healing potions but it is very dangerous. Anytime you handle the plant for harvesting, trimming or propagating, you have to wear dragonhide gloves and clean the gloves immediately after."
Snape was confounded for a moment; the child was a fountain of information for ingredients in potions if he knew this much about aconite.
"Mr Longbottom was it?"
"Yes sir," Neville replied cautiously.
"Come forward and look at the specimens on this table at the front of the room. I want you to identify them and evaluate the condition of the potion ingredients for me."
"Uh… yes sir," Neville responded before he glanced at Harry.
His roommate nodded and whispered, "You can do it Neville. You know everything about plants."
While Neville went to the front of the room, Justin asked, "Professor, can you tell us about the first two questions you asked?"
"Yes, please," added Hannah Abbot.
Snape frowned just a moment but decided to give the Longbottom boy a moment before he quizzed him again.
"Very well, when you prepare your cauldron properly, you can combine asphodel and wormwood together with a binding agent to make a sleeping potion we call the Draught of Living Death. Persons who take this potion appear to be dead but are actually in a sleep so deep that only another potion can awaken them."
"Like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White?" asked Sally-Anne from the 'puffs, who immediately blushed to have named two princesses from Muggle fairy tales.
Rather than snap at the girl, Snape who had read the same fairy tales as a child, asked her name, "Miss?"
"Perks, sir. Sally-Anne Perks."
"Well then Miss Perks, most muggle fairy tales are revisions of things that happened to witches and wizards. I want you to research the true stories behind the fairy tales and discover what really happened to those two witches. How were they poisoned, and how were they revived?"
"They were real? They were witches?" the young witch asked, though her imagination immediately placed her in the library pouring over magical fairy tales and history books seeking the truths of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
"Yes, they were witches, just like yourself?" Snape affirmed.
"Now, a bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat when it is butchered. If you are given a poison by accident or on purpose, and you can swallow a bezoar and it will neutralize most poisons."
*(+++++)*
In the Great Hall that evening, the Gryffindor firsties approached the Hufflepuff table and asked about their first potions class.
"How many cauldrons did you blow up?" asked Lavender.
"Did Snape turn red?" asked Parvati. "I think I have a shawl that colour of red at home."
Ron Weasley nodded and said, "We lost almost twenty points in potions today! 'course the twins lost twenty when Snape caught 'em trying to get into the potion cabinet."
"That's dangerous!" Hannah replied. "In our class, we talked about how the different ingredients can explode."
"Wow! Tell me," Seamus insisted on knowing.
Susan Bones stared the boy down and asked, "If you blow up Gryffindor tower, you'll be dead."
"Naw, the twins already told us to do any experiments in the unused classrooms far away from the dorms." Ron looked around the table and whispered, "My mother and father questioned Fred and George about the fire here at Hogwarts this summer. They pressed 'em real hard to tell if the twins left any experiments lying around that might have begun the fire."
"And did they?" asked Zach after he noticed Susan's expression of outrage.
Ron shook his head, "They swore on their magic it wasn't nothing they'd done."
The red-head ventured closer to Harry but kept an arm's length away with the owl on the shoulder of the boy-who-lived. Keeping his eye on the owl, Ron asked, "So Harry, how many points did you lose in potions class today?"
"Mr Weasley, I enjoy your stories but I don't think we're on a first name basis," Harry replied. "I earned five points for my potion for a bruise balm."
"Yes, and Neville – Mr Longbottom – earned twenty points for showing Professor Snape the fungus that had infested the… what was that leaf called?" Justin asked.
"Shrivelled Fig Leaf," Neville explained. "It looked like doxie fungus at first but that you can neutralize with shredded pine cones. This was a fungus that rats bring in and there's no agent to counteract it."
Susan said, "I think everyone earned points in potions class. But Neville earned the most."
"You earned points in potions class?" asked Ron in a loud yell that drew the attention of most of the Great Hall.
"Yeah, it was a great class," Harry replied. "Professor Snape is great."
Just then Ron's pet rat stuck its nose out of the boy's pocket and sniffed the air, looking for dinner.
*(+++++)*
Next chapter, Dumbledore finally wakes up, Snape and Sprout begin planning to handle the problem with rats in Hogwarts, and Harry takes Hedwig with them to history class.